The Three Alliances
Of all the factions binding Mecha Galaxy's Clans together, the so-called "Three Alliances" are the biggest and best-organized. They are constantly referred to in the single-player Missions, but most of this article is pieced together from the game's "Lore" and "Mechs" sections, as well as Facebook discussions. The Illyrian Hegemony While the Hegemony's origins are now hopelessly muddled -- probably due to the Second Digital Dark Age -- it is clear that a planetary superpower called the "Illyrian Empire" transitioned into a hegemony of multiple star systems about 300 years before Mecha Galaxy. By definition, a hegemony requires its component states to share a common value system: the genius of the Illyrians was to appropriate Greco-Roman culture wholesale, an ancient Old Earth society which any inhabited planet could identify with. Until Drochah revealed himself in 3290, its leading Clans also claimed direct descent from the Forerunners, lending them an air of semi-divinity. Over the next three centuries, the Hegemony expanded to include both the Solar System, and all the stars within 200 light-years¹, including Alpha Centauri and Gliese 667. Within this volume it exerts almost total control, unlike the Shogunate or Cogwerk Planets, which are interwoven with both each other, and with lesser factions. In recent decades, legal corruption and cultural decadence have grown, while rivalries between the Hegemony's ruling Clans are beginning to stunt its economic growth and military preparedness. But the Illyrians remain dedicated to the ideals of imperial glory, and united against any attacks from outside forces. Concerns about the Hegemony's imminent collapse, frequently expressed in the late 3200s, now seem to have been misplaced. Today there are three principal Clans -- known as "Houses", "Tribes", "Gens" or "Demes" in Hegemony space -- who take the role of patricians and aristoi. The "House of Romulus", led by Gaius Flaminius, consists of the wealthy warrior-statesmen who founded the Hegemony. The "House of Strategoi", led by Scipio Aemilianus, has since supplanted them in both controlling the military and promoting Classical virtues of duty and honor. Finally the "Radix Tribe", led by Publius Decius (one of Mecha Galaxy's few political leaders with no Mecha experience or pilot profile), advocates for defensive or mercantile foreign policies, rather than the aggressive expansionism preferred by Romulus and Strategoi. The Society of Cogwerk Planets A thousand years before the events of Mecha Galaxy -- that is, approximately 2300 A.D. -- "wayward bands of traders and smugglers" departed the repressive societies then dominating the Orion Spur. Using a combination of Gateway and space ark technology, they eventually reached the outer "Cygnus" portion of the Norma-Cygnus arm. Understandably, the values of the first Cygnus settlers were entrepreneurial in nature: individual sovereignty, laissez-faire government, and free-market economics. However, they could not entirely escape their oligarchic heritage, retaining a fondness for grand (if meaningless) titles and elaborate (if unwritten) rules of etiquette. Whether by accident or by design, Cygnus society modeled itself on the last culture where oligarchy and libertarianism went hand-in-hand...the Victorian or Gilded Age of Old Earth. In time, this even extended to a steampunk aesthetic, which replaced the cyberpunk aesthetic common elsewhere in human space. On June 15th, 3015, an especially Anglophile group of Cygnus nobles commemorated the Magna Charta by gathering on the planet of Greenfall, and writing their own "Great Charter". By doing so, they bound their respective Clans into the largest alliance of modern times: the Society of Cogwerk Planets. For centuries afterwards, June 15th would be celebrated as a holiday by the Cogwerk Clans. Unlike the Illyrian model, in which Clans pledge allegiance to the faction itself, Cogwerk Clans owe their loyalties to wealthy patrons and families. There is a small "national" military, with pilots from many different Clans serving part-time; pilots are assigned to infantry or cavalry "divisions" (each the size of a large squadron and led by a lieutenant²) based on the speed and firepower of their Mecha. But since training and morale vary from Clan to Clan, and pilots may sabotage their companions to advance their patron's interests, the Cogwerk military is regarded as an undiscplined rabble by the Hegemony and Shogunate. Ironically, Cogwerk Clans are much more effective in the role of guerrillas and private security. The most famous -- or infamous, depending on your viewpoint -- are the "Legionnaires of Galactic Trade" and the "Trinitarian World Symposium". They are, respectively, bound to the von Ajax and MechDougan dynasties. The Meiji Shogunate The Meiji Shogunate -- internally known only as "The Zaibatsu" -- is the youngest of the Three Alliances, founded by Eiji Kiyomizu at some point in the 3200s. Kiyomizu had spent most of his youth conquering his neighbors in "the inner arms of the galaxy": presumably a reference to the Norma and Scutum-Centaurus arms³. By the time he came into contact (and conflict) with the Illyrian Hegemony and Cogwerk Planets, he had crowned himself Emperor, and created a state ideology that fused the culture of the Tokugawa Shogunate with that of the Meiji Restoration; hence the name given to his empire by outsiders. Emperor Kiyomizu's "shogun" -- or commander-in-chief -- is theoretically subordinate to a civilian Minister of Defense, one of several such ministers who report directly to the Emperor. The current shogun, Tetsuo Takahashi, not only has several politically ambitious subordinates, but is rumored to have aspirations of his own. Meanwhile the Emperor's heir, Crown Prince Masahiko Kiyomizu, is a deeply unpopular figure. As the Emperor ages, it becomes increasingly likely that either he or his successor will be overthrown by Takahashi, creating a Shogunate in both fact and name. It is worth noting that the shogun, his top officers, and all of the Emperor's ministers have been appointed to a body called "the Zaibatsu's Galactic Senate": this probably means the Zaibatsu's designated seats in the Galactic Senate, although other interpretations are possible. The most curious feature of Shogunate culture is that it has no Clans. All military units, including Mecha squadrons, are under the command of Shogun Takahashi. Perhaps the Emperor's interpretation of Bushido forbids creating semi-independent armed forces. Yet even if this is the case, philosophy can only go so far. Kiyomizu's "chief advisor", Minister Emi Yamaguchi, is really the head of an extensive spy network. Although it has never been explicitly stated in-game, it is reasonable to conclude her assassins and sleeper agents exhibit some kind of policing function on would-be Clans. ---- ¹ The Hegemony's size is consistently estimated at just under 100,000 star systems. In our part of the Milky Way, stellar density is about 1 star per 320 cubic light-years. Therefore, 100,000 stars would fill a spherical space of 32 million cubic light-years, which has a radius of 196.9 light-years. ² The equivalent Hegemony rank appears to be "centurion". ³ Assuming "inner" refers to the spiral arms located between Earth and the galactic core. Category:Lore Category:Politics Category:History